Where's north? Defining Tempel 1's poles

NASA / UMD / Cornell / Peter Thomas

Where's north? Defining Tempel 1's poles

Tempel 1 with the nucleus coordinate system superimposed. Because the flyby spacecraft flew under the nucleus, we can see the negative pole. The positive pole is just over the horizon at upper right. The positive pole is defined by the right hand rule (based on direction of spin). In this case it is also pointing into the north ecliptic hemisphere and can therefore also be called the north pole.